WAKEY, WAKEY SLEEPYHEAD!
Tuesday 9th February 2010. Sometime past 6am and I'm roused from my sleep by Efuwa. She's pacing around and looks to be in pain. I'm not woken up fully enough and so it wasn't clear to me when she mentioned she thought her waters had broken.
"Huh?"
"I've got really bad cramping and I think my waters have broken"
"Oh ok!"
What to do. What to do. There had been previous false alarms as Ef had "mistaken" the show for something else. I quote mistaken because I think it was more wishful thinking than a genuine mistake. Getting to the end, she just couldn't wait any more. How much of a split that was between her wanting him out so she could go and be a "young girl" again and how much of it was her wanting to finally meet the little Konkontibaa, we'd have to ask her.
I'd later find out that the cramping has started around 4am. Efuwa hadn't given it much thought since the last week had been pretty much full of cramping and excessive kicking by you-know-who. Our expectations on when he'd finally turn up had shifted so many times in the last month of the pregnancy but we were both in agreement that a Valentine baby [his expected due date] was not a good thing.
I, in all my infinite knowledge, had predicted the baby would actually come 2 weeks early making him a January baby. We'd also heard from a lot of midwives in the antenatal sessions we attended that first babies usually were late. By this time and in light of my prediction haven't failed to materialise, I had resigned myself to Konkontibaa turning up a whole two weeks late.
It looked like this little one had a plan of his own though, he was coming and there was no stopping him. In the meantime, Efuwa as cool as a cucumber decides to take a shower first and see what happens. Maybe this was just a false alarm and was going to pass.
After her shower she suggests we call the hospital and see what they say. Between then and us making the call, her demeanour prompted me to ask, "So you think this is it?". Yup! We were go! Mommy said so.
Efuwa's mum was around and was pretty calm in all this but you could never tell with her, she'd probably manage to stifle a scream even if you were sawing off her thumb. Granny kept her cool even as the hospital Triage asked us to come in for a quick check.
DRIVER BANZA
After a quick cup of tea we headed out in the 15-year old Nissan Micra. We'd bought it right after moving in [December 2009] for the very reason that I needed to be driving regularly before our baby arrived. Only Efuwa and I were going in for the check-up, and it was still impossible to read what her mum was thinking. Just as well that the hospital was all of 5 minutes away from the house because I don't think she would have managed to keep calm.
I was very much focused on making sure all my eggs were going to arrive safely at the hospital in this £500 banger but I think all the relief was Efuwa's that I got us there and back with only the only complaints being hitting a few speed bumps too quickly.
We got to the triage at around 8am and didn't have wait for relatively too long before we got confirmation that indeed the waters had broken and a promise of an 80% chance of seeing the little guy before the end of the day.
"Go home, take some pain killers, have a bath. Come back when the contractions are 3 minutes apart"
You what? Contractions? No one told me about any contractions!
Well it turns out that by checking and confirming the dilation of 2cm, it had triggered contractions. Oh so they weren't making that up in the antenatal sessions.
Okoree: "Where's all my amniotic fluid gone? I wasn't quite done with it!"
CONTRACTIONS ARE LIKE BUSES, YOU WAIT 9 MONTHS FOR ONE...
10am. Back home, I whip out my notepad and stopwatch on my phone start timing the contractions and their duration. Pretty much all I could do at this point, really. That and trying not to be yelled at by talking to her DURING contractions.
Half an hour and what seemed like a million contractions later. With me subdued, Efuwa's mum silently praying and Efuwa listening to some music in-between contractions, I finally manage to convince her to don her TENS machine before the killer contractions started. Aren't all contractions "killer" you say? Well, at the time I believe she too would have ripped my head off for suggesting that the pain she'd been going through the last half-hour were baby-contractions [excuse the pun].
After what seemed like an eternity to all of us and what my records now tell me were over 3 hours of contractions, we finally started to consistently hit the 3-minute and below interval. Between the early stages and now she'd finally curled up on her side at her mum's insistence.
"Conserve your energy for what's coming."
"But mum, you didn't tell me it was this painful"
I was staying out of this one. Called the hospital and got a trainee midwife who seemed to have no clue as to what she was doing.
"What is your name, I mean you wife's name?"
"What is your address?"
"How do you spell that?"
Seriously? At this time? We've just left the place for god' sake! But I bit my tongue and didnt even bother correcting her spelling. We were to wait until the senior midwife in charge called us in. OK then!
Another half an hour or so and with the contractions getting dangerously below 3-minute intervals, we decided not to wait any more and headed out to the maternity ward. This time I had to fight tooth and nail to drive us there.
With Efuwa's confidence in me dented from the speed-bump incidences from earlier in the day, I drove at almost a crawl to the hospital being careful to avoid even little pot-holes so long as it didn't involve any contraction inducing swerves. At the hospital Efuwa remained really calm and in the zone and waited while I queued up to find parking space.
DIDN'T THEY TEACH YOU ANYTHING IN ANTENATAL CLASS?
By now she'd got the hang of the TENS machine and was using it very well to control the pain at the height of the contractions. Suddenly she didn't seem so scary. In fact she seemed vulnerable and needing support. She spent next hour waiting, pacing, wincing, TENSing, being checked but nary a groan or yell came from her. It was therefore suprising and at the same time relieving when we were told she was 6cm dilated.
Suddenly a star had been born in the maternity triage. The 6cm dilated lady that isn't biting everyone's head off. Canyerbelieveit?! Apparently women regularly come in at 2 cm asking for morphine; "Get this baby out! Now, Dammit!"
Finally we were ushered upstairs to room 9. [Ooh! A trend. 9th Feb. Room 9] and got ourselves as comfortable as can be. We soon found out the midwife in charge of the delivery was Ghanaian. I don't know about many Ghanaians being in the borough of Hillingdon so I wouldn't have ever bet on the midwife that delivered my son being Ghanaian. [In any case I would have lost. Read on]
Efuwa: Pacing the delivery room.
Efuwa finally got on the gas & air and started puffing and sucking and also using the TENS machine. Strangely though she refused to turn it up beyond 8 and claimed was ticklish or some-such. She was still playing midwife's pet though. Smiling and generally being in a good mood in-between contractions; prompting the midwife to wonder out loud whether she was indeed 6cm dilated.
The next 7 hours involved more contractions, cervical dilation checks every 4 hours, brilliantly timed pain relief in the form of pethidine and meptid [in that order]. Ef even managed two sessions of 10 minutes sleep in-between contractions after taking the pethidine. It's also involved a change in shift meaning our baby would not be delivered by a Ghana-woman. No problem. Plod on, afterall, Efuwa had been praying for an angel to come take care of her and her baby.
At some point during all this, the new midwife started making noises about not being able to get the baby's heartbeat; which is hardly what any mother-in-labour or parents would want to hear at this point. Next thing we know a doctor has been called in to "check out the situation" while we were being told "everything [was] fine, and it could be just the mother's heartbeat interfering with the baby's".
"OK, I don't think there's anything wrong but I'm going to do an FSA just to confirm it"
Whoa whoa, wait a minute? What have the Financial Services Authority got to do with the birth of my baby? I jumped up!
"This wasn't covered in antenatal. What is an FSA?"
"Oh I'm going to stick an electrode on to the top of his head and read his heartbeat"
"Any harm to baby or mother?"
"No, none at all"
"OK, go ahead then"
I'm to later find out that it is indeed an FSE (Fetal Scalp Electrode) which didn't even work. So in the end they chose to monitor his heartbeat permanently rendering Efuwa suddenly immobile. The only thing it taught us was that he had lots of hair on his head.
The next dilation check, around 8.30 pm came up with some teasingly frustrating news. She was 9 and a bit dilated with only a little lip of the cervix to go. By this time Efuwa was feeling the effect of each contraction and the meds had all but worn off. No one asked but it looked like it was too late now for any further medication. This boy was coming and we needed mummy to be lucid and pushing.
My role within all of this was a lot of waiting, supporting Efuwa without getting in her way and trying very hard to remember to take some photos and videos as she'd requested. It sometimes seemed like it was taking forever and other times felt like it was going too quick. I'd never seen 4 hours in-between cervical checks go so quick in my life. Any other time and being asked to stay 4-hours in the same chair with no entertainment would have made me want to scratch my eyes out.
Sitting quietly beside the bed, I even had time contemplate oh how great it would be if the baby managed to hold out till Wednesday he could have my dad's name - Kweku Anane - and then immediately felt very guilty. Here was your wife having proper contractions and you're thinking about silly day names. Forgive me!
PUSH!
By 9.30 pm, Efuwa was fully dilated but that darn lip would't budge. The meds fully worn off and Efuwa talking about having an urge to push and midwife and trainee midwife anxiously pleading with her to hold out for a bit. Up till this point it had all been rosy from my point of view but it was obviously now that this was a woman in labour and she was going to get the baby out. It was at this point that I started feeling really sorry for Ef; you could see she was still trying but the pain had become genuinely unbearable.
The midwives sensing this asked her to prepare herself for pushing by going for the last pee before she became someone's mum. A bit like me asking Ef to do so before we went out. We both know you're going to need the loo at some point in time so do it now before we get on the tube. All this while and I'd been missing my calling as a midwife.
Turns out getting out of the bed and squatting on the thingey finally got the annoying lip out of the way. Efuwa gets back and their next check confirms we're ready for the pushing.
"We're almost done, baby will be here in about an hour"
"No worries", I thought. I've been here since 1pm, another hour wont kill me.
9.51 PM GMT (10 minutes and 4 contractions later) and our first child was officially born!
The minute or two following his big entrance went by so quickly I nary had a chance to enjoy it. One minute I'm a father-to-be, the next I'm supposed to cut the cord, film him, take some photos of him being weighed and argue with the midwife about the time of birth [yes, that's what you get when your dad is a radio-controlled-watch-toting geek]
I bet right now, this very moment, the maternity ward are looking to use Efuwa as the picture of a perfect woman in labour. Smiley, calm, push only when told and push hard!
OUR LITTLE EAGLET
We were surprisingly turfed out of the room very quickly. Apparently we weren't the only people having a baby that night. Efuwa had a bed in the maternity ward. Bed number 9 [that number again].
My mother-in-law and I went home to get some much needed sleep. The next morning I got a cab [taking no chances here] and picked up Efuwa and Okoree Kwabena Anane Frimpong. We call him Okoree and yes, you probably need a pronunciation guide for this. For the uninitiated, it's an Akan word for Eagle. In Akan text that would be ɔkɔreɛ.
The two Os are as in O strich
The first E is as in E agle
The last E is as in ph E asant
We do have a charge to keep and he's doing very well. You might even be hearing about the more exciting bits on this his journey through life.
Who's your daddy?
